Ahhahaha.. er.. sorry, but.. come on, it had to be done. I didn't feel like I could find any great info without picking up a book on dying... so... instead of doing that, I winged it, of course. The dye preparations - Spinach, Beets and Tea, Coffee Grounds and Onion Skins, and Carrot tops and Goldenrod Flowers.

Glowing, OoooOOoOoooo! (Well.. it was fun.)

Boiling

Finished!

Boiled for an hour and a half, scrap material left in to dye over night. Apparently I didn't take a picture of the swatches. Well, everything but the spinach "worked". The brown was very pale, though I'm sure I know why. I just couldn't bring myself to sacrifice that much of my beloved coffee to the cause, so I used all used grounds and one tablespoon new grounds. I'm going to try adding walnut to it. The yellow was also pretty pale, I added turmeric. The purple is literally 3 dips of the dipstick of gentian violet, which came out very bright. The spinach did almost nothing. I don't think I used nearly enough. You're supposed to be getting the chlorophyll out of it and since I have some liquid chlorophyll I'm just going to use some of that. Same thing, less work, ...right?

Take 2! The daycare kids had great fun stirring the onesies and a tea towel in a big bucket of vinegar water, and then putting them into the dyes.

The onesies in their dye baths, left them in overnight.

They came out really nice! The pale violet onesie I took out after a couple hours, the darker was in overnight, and I tied it with a rubber band.

So i asked my mum if she would try to teach me how to make a pattern from outfits and sew them. She did her darndest in the limited time we had, and we made one pattern and got one jumper nearly done! Here's Gramma with our stunning little model. She is never this happy about us dressing her.

Tada! I think it will fit really nice when I get the chance to finish it.

I'm a stay at home Mum, raising two little girls in Western Michigan. Trying to keep every day full of wonder, excitement, and learning. We want to share the ways we explore and celebrate our fascinating world through art and investigation.